“If she wasn’t so damned unbalanced it would be a solid plan,” Raquel insisted, still in protest mode. “She’ll do anything to destroy us. You can’t possibly be thinking about relying on her with something so large and potentially deadly for our race.”
“Yep, I am,” I admitted with a casual shrug.
“You’re an idiot,” Raquel snapped and ran her hands through her hair in frustration. “A total idiot.”
“Let him finish,” the King said watching me, his curiosity piqued. “You’re only revealing part of this plan. Finish.”
“We need Juliet, but does it actually have to be the real Juliet?” I asked as I glanced over at Jean Paul.
Jean Paul had stayed quiet for the last few minutes and watched the scene play out with a small smile on his lips. He knew exactly where I was going with my line of thinking and he was as entertained by the confusion as much as I was.
“You know what?” Raquel huffed as she slapped my shoulder hard. She’d caught on, but wasn’t pleased to have been played. “You are a dick. Brilliant, but still a dick.”
“Thank you.” I gave her a small bow and blew her a kiss.
“I still as confused as shit here,” Pam shouted. “Anyone want to clue me in?”
“Well,” Jean Paul started, and was cut short by Pam slapping her hand over his mouth.
“No! Don’t tell me. I hate it when I know how a movie or book ends. I want to be surprised,” she announced with an evil little grin. “How does Satan play into this? No! Wait. Don’t tell me.”
Satan… damn it. I’d almost forgotten about him. Pam had a fine point. My original plan was to piss Dracula off. Not going to be helpful with a better plan in place. I needed to get hold of the Devil and tell him to abort plan A. The problem was I couldn’t get through to any of them at the moment.
Fuck.
“I’ll let Satan know to drop the original plan,” I muttered as I tried to reach Ethan with our secret code.
Again, nothing.
“Still no answer?” Raquel asked as she glanced at my phone with concern.
“No,” I replied tightly.
“I’m sure they’re fine,” she said firmly. “We’ll just stop Satan from doing whatever he was going to do when they get there.”
“Sounds like a plan,” I said as I stood and prepared to go back to the Summit.
The only problem with that scenario was that the Devil did whatever he wanted whenever he wanted. He’d been enormously amused at the thought of Vlad going ballistic when he showed up with the famous and dead actor who’d immortalized Dracula in film. It was common knowledge that Vlad violently despised the depictions of himself in literature and film. Normally my ideas were faultless. This one… not so much.
I vant to drink your blood might be the line that ends the human, Angel and Vampyre races…
Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.
“We need to get back to the Summit now,” I snapped.
“What about Raquel?” the King asked. “I don’t think it wise to reveal the curse is broken yet.”
“He’s right,” Jean Paul said. “We don’t want Vlad suspecting anything is amiss.”
“While all this may be true, what we really don’t want is Satan showing up with Bela Lugosi and having him tell Vlad he wants to drink his blood,” I said, revealing my shitty plan to all.
“Holy shitknockers,” Pam screeched and jumped up and down like a bouncing ball. “That is so fucking awesome! I wish I’d come up with it myself. He’ll split in half like Rumplefuckingstein.”
Raquel just stared at me in disbelief and tried desperately to bite back her laughter. “Was that really plan A?” she asked on a burst of giggles.
“Yes. Yes, that was plan fucking A,” I hissed as everyone in the room let their laughter rip. “I didn’t have much to go on, so I figured I’d start by pissing the bastard off.”
“You shall certainly succeed at that, my friend,” the King said, still chuckling.
I grinned and shook my head ruefully. “It was not my finest, but as I said, I had to start somewhere.”
“I think you should still use plan A,” Jean Paul said thoughtfully. “It will definitely get him to leave the room and then I can go to work.”
“Or Dracula will blow up the room and everyone in it,” Raquel added and sobered us all quickly.
“Nah, Roberto will zap his ass so hard and so fast, Vlad won’t even know what hit him. I’ll let Roberto in on the secret,” Pam said with her eyes as wide and excited as a child’s on its birthday.
I smiled at Pam’s willingness to help my cause. “Actually, I need to have a word with Roberto as well. Can you get me a private meeting?”
“Does Davis Hasselhoff like his hamburgers?” she demanded with her hands on her hips and brows arched high.
I was silent because I had no fucking clue if her answer meant yes or no.
“She’ll get you the meeting,” the King said as he watched his nutbag of a mate with fondness. “She just has an unusual way of imparting the information.”
“That she does,” I agreed and took Raquel by the hand. “Can you stay cloaked if we go back now?”
“Does the Pope wear red shoes?” she asked me with a wicked twinkle in her eyes.
“The old one did,” I shot back with a grin.